


Side Road

by DemonShuriken87



Series: The Long Walk [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Comfort Sex, F/M, PTSD implications, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-02-10 20:44:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2039463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonShuriken87/pseuds/DemonShuriken87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This little side story takes place around nine years into James' and Iras' relationship, a few years before the end of the main story. James has woken up from one of his many memories of the War, and in his inability to sleep, decides he needs the distraction, and comfort, of his long time lover. Iras humors him at first, but quickly  allows herself to be seduced. What follows, is pure smut, but with Fluff thrown in for good measure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Can't sleep

**Author's Note:**

> This is towards the end of the main story. This is also probably going to be one of a series of sub-stories that I'm going to post in this work.

Something tickled at Iras’ stomach, like something moving over her with a light, barely there touch. She attempted to ignore it, passing it up, in her sleep-induced haze, to James having thrown an arm around her during the night and was now having a hard time getting comfortable. But, when she felt the definite press of thumbs up her sides, and the slow slide of her shirts fabric, she sighed heavily and opened her eyes to slits. Through the near pitch darkness of the room, she noted a familiar mass hovering over her, and felt the heat of his body as he situated himself closer to her.

“What time is it…?” Iras groaned, stretching her arms over her head. She didn’t need to turn the lights on. Only her marine knew how to touch her, and where, in order to get her attention like he had. James smoothed his hands down her taught sides, running his thumbs over her plethora of scars while humming against her ribcage.

“Probably early.” She didn’t like when he said probably. Probably meant it was, definitely, very early.

“You don’t know?” she drawled. She shifted as his tongue dragged over one particularly sensitive section of the near life-ending slash that Fredrick had given her, the sensation sending a bolt of sudden pleasure up her spine. She shifted her legs, aware that James was awkwardly sprawled between them. In her sleepy haze, she wasn’t sure if she wanted him to continue his biting and mending, or if she wanted him to get the hell off of her so she could go back to sleep. She blearily blinked across the room to where the alarm clock glowed a bloody red.

She let out a long, annoyed growl.

“James, it’s four in the morning…” she whined.

James pretended he couldn’t hear her. He slid one hand down her hip, cupped her rear, and tried to pull her down closer to him. She didn’t know when the covers had been thrown off, but she was acutely aware that he’d managed to get her top under her chin, and was fondling the edges of her shorts.

Iras grunted when his lips suctioned under her right breast, her hips jerking at the motion. She reached out and ran a hand over the freshly cut sides of his fauxhawk, her mouth firming.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.

His dark eyes burned at her through the dimness of the room, and she felt the bed dip as he pulled himself over her. He loomed there, his hands on her thighs, his hips just close enough to hers for her to feel their heat, and she squirmed a bit under his stare.

“Yeah,” he acknowledged. He snapped her towards him, pulling her off of her pillow, to where their hips were flush. His arousal pressed against her through her sleepwear. She bit her lower lip when he slicked his way up and down her slit, pressing just the way she liked it. When a small shudder forced its way over her body, he leaned down and started nibbling at her jawline.

She moaned when his hands palmed at her breasts. He pushed her further into the bed, now bringing his body flat to hers, to where she felt every inch of him.

“I take it…” she gasped when he bit at her ear, “you don’t want to talk about it?”

“Nope,” he growled.

“Okay.”

He silenced her with his lips pressing to hers insistently. She didn’t need to ask why he couldn’t sleep. Sex, or just cuddling, or drinking, or sparring, helped dull the flashes for as long as was necessary for you to stop thinking about it. He released her breasts and snaked his hands down her body. He hooked his hands into her shorts, and grudgingly untangled himself from her hips. With a quick move, he tore them from her and left her bare. His eyes roved her body, and she wondered just how well he could see in the dark of the room. From the way she felt the burn of his stare ghost over her stomach, her chest, to her face, and then to the apex between her legs, she figured he could see a lot.

Iras didn’t have time to feel the cool air hit her exposed core before his hand was cupping it. His mouth fell back on hers, wasting no time in making her mind as drunk as possible on him and everything about him. His finger skirted the folds, then delved between them, finding her nub at once. She broke contact to let out a low moan, her eyes almost closing in concentration. He rubbed at her slowly, but with a firmness he hadn’t shown in a while. She shifted her legs further apart, her hands now gripping onto his shoulders as he worked. He glanced down her body to where his hand was making short work of whatever fatigue might have caused her to be distracted, running small circles around her nub until her hips did the jumping thing he liked.

Iras thumped her head against the bed, realizing the stimulation was too much, too fast. It made the bottoms of her feet tingle, and her sight was starting to tilt at the edges.

“James, wait… you’re going too fast,” she whined.

He started, just a bit, just enough that she could feel it against her, and he locked eyes with her again.

“Sorry,” he said, his voice low with want. He slowed his stroking down, and decided that her neck looked lonely. He nibbled his way around her collarbone, humming to himself when she scraped her blunted nails down his chest. She lingered at his tattoo, running a palm over it with a small smile. She’d give the kid one thing, he committed to something full force. She’d seen it with his training in the N7 program, and now she saw it with how he ran his squad. She admired that aspect of James, even if he didn’t acknowledge it as a good point often enough. He pulled her from her revere by biting into her nape.

She yelped, startled by the sudden influx of pain, and almost smacked him on the head. He smoothed the wound with his tongue, and began to nurse at the smarting wound. The contrast of now slow, riding pleasure to the brief burst of pain made her head even fuzzier. She pushed her hips into his hand. He took the hint in stride, and slid his fingers down, and dipped two into her opening, stretching her slightly. She let out a long, held in breath as he thrust in and out of her, trying to find that one spot.

“Fuck!” Iras whispered, her eyes screwing closed when he succeeded. He cupped his palm against her, rubbed the heel of it against her clit, and began to press against that spot inside of her over and over again.

“Better?” he rasped. His voice was gravelly with want, and the way his breathing bombarded her ear gave away his lust. She nodded, and cursed the fact that the lights weren’t on. Half the fun of when James did this was watching his hips press against the bed, trying to find some friction to help alleviate the persistence of his own arousal. Instead, she was content to listen to him occasionally hiss against her chest. James shifted when let out a low grunt.

“Turn over,” he all but ordered.

Iras blinked at him, lazily, but did as he wanted. They were both N7’s, but she still sometimes thought of herself as his instructor back at the academy. She turned onto her side and his fingers slipped from her, leaving her feeling empty. He settled behind her, pulling her taught to him, her back against his firm chest, and slid his hand down her stomach. He nudged her legs apart, and she obligingly wrapped her top leg over his, while his free arm snaked under her to grasp at her breasts. His lips soon found their way back to nibbling and kissing at her neck, while he replaced his fingers where they’d withdrawn. The new position allowed him to penetrate deeper, and she gasped, arching against him. His fingers rubbed against that soft spot at the front of her entrance over and over, until she started to shake, while his palm rubbed against her clit.

She rested her head in the crook of his shoulder, her eyes sliding closed while a coil of pressure began to build in her core.

“If you stop again, I’ll skin you,” she whispered, her hips starting to jerk in his grasp.

“Remember that you said that,” James growled.

Iras didn’t care that he’d use that against her later. All she cared about was how, with each passing thrust and rub of his fingers, the coil in her core became tighter and tighter. The arm she wasn’t using to support her head flew to his wrist, her nails pressing against his skin, while she bucked as he grew more persistent. The hand that had been kneading her breast slipped over her, and between her legs, where he used his index finger to press against her clit.

Iras might have said something, she couldn’t tell. All she could hear was the blood rushing into her ears, and the world starting to tunnel. Suddenly, she couldn’t keep her eyes open if she tried, and she bit her lower lip to stave off the wave of sounds emitted by her throat. James abandoned her neck, and instead contented himself to focus on undoing his adept; each move calculated, each stroke timed, he set about to reducing her to a useless puddle in his arms. He increased the speed of his fingers motioning inside of her, and when she started to tense up, and try to pull away from him, he knew she was about done.

“James…” she hissed, and bowed into him, nearly doubling over.

The coil shattered. With a final, near blistering push, he toppled her over that edge, and her completion came over her like a searing hot wave. It rushed from her core, and coated every nerve ending in her body. She made a small noise, like a strangled shout, as he hips and legs twitched in time with her clenching walls. James pulled a hand clear of her clit, and gently urged her face to turn.

His lips sealed on hers as he nursed her down, thrusting his fingers languidly. Her body eased from taught, to utter relaxation, and she felt like she floated over her bed, and not on it. When he pulled his fingers out, she shivered again, but didn’t let go of his wrist, happy to just hold onto him in any way she could while she coasted in her aftermath.

James broke contact first.

“Felt good?” he asked.

Iras chuckled, and turned around so that she could wrap her arms around his neck. She made sure every curve and dip of her body met his, and didn’t miss the way his erection pressed, hot and ready, against her stomach.

“You could say that,” she murmured.

“Wanna keep going?”

“You’re lucky I’m off tomorrow,” she reminded him. He chuckled, then pushed on her hips. She got the hint, and pulled herself up, and came to straddle him. She reached between them, and now that she’d been awake long enough, she could peer through the dark of the room to lock eyes with him. She smirked as she took him in her hand, and gave a few long, slow pumps.

He bared his teeth in a small grimace, his hands flying to her hips as if to urge her on. Iras, however, would not be rushed. Instead, she sat back, pulling her core away from his writhing hips, and busied herself with the languid pace she’d set before. He grunted, and tried to pull her back of over his arousal, his eyes gleaming in the dark.

“You sadistic little shit,” he complained when she refused to be moved.

She shrugged, and sent a small biotic pulse over her hands. The rush of energy over him made his hips arch off the bed, a surprised snort escaping his nose. He licked his lips, and Iras felt a small power in how hungry he stared at her. James could level just about any man or woman in hand to hand combat. His wide muscles, brute strength, and superior ability to come up with strategies on the fly made him a worthy opponent even to the most powerful of warriors. So, to see him with his mouth parted, breathing heavily as she teased him, running her fingers up and down his length just fast enough to keep him hard, but not fast enough to give him release, was heady.

She twisted her hand around the head of his cock, and she felt his whole body shudder. He raked his teeth over his lower lip while his thumbs made small circles on her hips.

When she decided she’d tormented him enough, and when he started to buck his hips to try to get her to apply more pressure with her hands, she slid her hips back over him. She guided his cock into her, and she held her breath in order to listen to him let out a relieved hum. When he was fully inside of her, she sat there for a moment, her hands splayed out over his stomach, and trying to allow herself time to accommodate the sudden girth.

“About time.”

“Watch it, War Hero,” she purred. When she didn’t feel so full, when she felt she’d stretched enough to allow him to move, she rocked her hips forward.

“I wasn’t complaining. Now, the views nice and all,” Iras yelped as James gripped her hips and toppled her over.

She landed with a small bounce on the mattress, her hair splayed around her, and with James towering over her with his hands on her hips. He pulled back, and nearly out, and then snapped forward. The sudden friction caused an eruption of pleasure that not even his first entrance had granted, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. He did it again, and again, until he’d managed to iron out a pace that had them both comfortable.

James leaned over her, pulling one leg over his arm, and smirked.

“You know, I’m glad the rumor about Fury’s was true.”

Iras yelped when he angled just right, hitting her g-spot and causing a bloom of spots before her eyes. She gripped onto his forearms.

“What rumor… is that?”

“How damn flexible you are,” James purred. He ran his tongue along the underside of her jaw, even as his hips smacked to hers. She shifted, trying to match his quickening pace, but in her nearly pinned position she could only manage a feeble lifting of her hips.

God, his hands, were everywhere. Whenever she was sure he’d managed to keep them in one spot for more than a few moments, they were rubbing and moving all over again. When one found its way between her legs, however, and brushed its thumb to her clit, she jerked and rewarded his efforts with a sharp cry. Their hips slapped together, echoing in the now too hot apartment, their skin wet with sweat. Iras pulsed another quick bolt of dark energy over her hands, which were now splayed over his chest, and James gave a low rumble of approval.

He pushed down, and rested his elbows next to her ears as he pressed his lips to hers. His tongue slicked into her mouth as his hips started slamming into her, over and over, at a much harder pace than before. He paused only for a moment, and when she was about to complain, he angled himself until she gave out another sharp cry. Finding the spot he’d found before, he began to thrust away at it until she broke their kiss to swear under her breath.

“Vega…” she breathed, tossing her head back. That breathy plead was all he needed, and he shivered all over.

“Damn you,” he jeered.

She felt him shift, and his hands dug into her hips with enough force that she was sure she’d have bruises in the morning. Her moans were soon mixed with his own grunts and needy noises as they tumbled faster and faster towards completion. He turned her onto her side, just enough to where he could hook her leg over his shoulder. He surprised Iras by pressing this thumb to her clit again, and began to rub at her while thrusting with wanton abandon. The coil in her core began to tighten again, this time much faster, and much hotter, than before. She gripped into the sheets, onto the arm that he used to steady himself on the bed, anything to anchor her against the tilting of the world, and the rushing in her head.

The coil shattered, and she took him with her. Iras buried her face into the crook of her arm as she shivered, her walls clenching him like a vice. He let out a low groan, his hips grinding forward, as he released into her in quick bursts. His tense grip on her relaxed and she could feel him about to collapse onto her. He pulled out, and hummed as he set her leg down.

“You want me to clean you up?”

“Too sensitive right now,” she murmured. He wrapped an arm around her and settled onto the bed behind Iras. With the act over, and the heat of their coupling dwindling, the room’s cold began to creep back in. “Sheets,” she reminded him.

James reached under her and pulled them atop. He tucked it around their bodies and settled his head into the crook of her neck. Even though she was sticky and hot, and sweaty, she allowed James his moment as he drifted. Sometimes, they all needed that distraction before going back to sleep. When his breathing evened out, and when his body had gone lax, she turned in his grasp to duck his head under her chin. She ran her fingers over his buzzed hair, a small smile ghosting her features before she, too, began to feel the lull of sleep. She supposed that there were worse ways to spend an hour in the wee hours of the morning.


	2. Sneak peak of Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the opening scene for Chapter 17 in the fic The Long Walk. I figured I'd post it here first, since I don't know when I'll be done with the full chapter--it's a long one. So, anyway, James has the day off, and with Iras out of rotation for mentally preparing her role for her deep-cover mission, James finds ways to make her come undone in his hands. In which we also learn that James might have a bit of a sadistic streak.

She tasted best when he worked her up into a frenzy. James learned the ins and outs of Iras by now, learned how to drive her wild, how to make her all but beg for him, to make her lose her cool exterior and be reduced to a puddled mess under him. He found his favorite way to whip her into a froth without even touching her involved being around just about every other recruit in the mess hall or common areas. He’d sit across from her and have an in-depth conversation with someone innocuous, not Tanaka since he caught on to his game to fast, and James would shot her a look that she caught instantly. Sometimes it was just the look, the piercing stare, him shoving all the things he wanted to do to her into how his eyes would hood just a bit, and a slow, lazy smirk would pull across his features. Other times, he’d lick his lower lip, or find an excuse to lick his thumb or palm, and she’d watch him like a hawk. Finally, the coup de grace was James sitting back just right, so that he showed off his large physique, and quirk an eyebrow at her to where it left little doubt what was on his mind.

Sometimes, she played back. Once, when he’d been practically putting on a show, and the reason why Tanaka was no longer his conversation partner of choice, she had snorted and he found himself with his lap filled with the very flexible woman’s foot. She trained more often in the biotic division, and so went without shoes when in the main buildings as much as possible—something about strengthening her weak ankles. He could still feel the heat of her foot as she gave him a very effective foot job, all the while grinning like a cat that had just eaten the family hen. She didn’t fight back, though, whenever Athentia or Caleb accompanied her to dinner, so James saved his hardball tactics for when they were present.

Today, however, he pulled no punches. Still brimming with cockiness over his promotion, he cornered her in their old training room-though now he was trained with the rest of the Soldiers in another area of the facility after having qualified to test out of further biotic resistant training-and didn’t touch her. He murmured things to her in Spanish, things she could halfway grasp, things that were lewd and graphic and made her cheeks and neck burn bright red. She chastised him, but he saw the way she would sink against the wall and press her thighs together, her eyes darting to his lips whenever he pulled away from assaulting her ears to stare down at her. Then, just when she reached out and fisted his fatigues, he pressed forward and hiked her up the wall with a thigh. She gasped, loudly, and had anyone been outside he would have worried they would be heard, especially after the yelp when one his hands dove to fondle between her legs over her pants.

“Fuck…”

“That’s the plan.”

He had to use the way her eyes glassed over as the fuel to keep himself from pouncing on her in the elevator on the way to her chambers. Even with his new quarters, he still roomed with Tanaka—though now they had quartered off sleeping areas and a small living room, James still didn’t want to see the man’s triumphant look of knowing if he dragged Iras in when he was there.

All the teasing was always worth it, even though it tortured James almost as much as it did her. She currently gripped his hair in one hand, the other stretched behind her, and her body shuddering and jolting whenever he passed over her with a languid, mocking lap of his tongue. She had a certain taste, even to her sweat and her mouth, whenever he made her want him this bad that he couldn’t get enough of.

“Vega…” she whined. He chuckled when her hips slid against his face, but he kept one of her thighs firmly locked with one his arms. The other she had splayed out, her toes curled. He liked the way she scraped her nails against his scalp when he didn’t move faster.

She let go of his hair and instead threw her arm over her eyes, her shoulders coming to nearly touch her ears.

“Maker, harder, James… You’ve… you’ve been down there for…”

“Ten minutes,” he glanced at the clock beside him.

Iras whimpered her correction, which it's been actually eleven, she couldn’t help counting since he kept bringing her almost to orgasm and then would retreat to doing what he was doing now. He nuzzled against her damp curls, breathed in her scent for what felt like the hundredth time in those ten minutes, and then skirted his free hands fingers up her slit again. Her hips jumped at the contact, and she tried to shove herself down on his hand when he thrust his middle finger into her depths but he kept her still with a firm, authoritative grip.

“No cheating,” he reminded her.

Her hands were back on his head when he crooked his finger and began to rub against the ridge within her. His tongue lathed over her clit again before he suctioned down onto her, pulling the swollen, worked nerve out and began suck and lick at it all over again. Iras’ breathing almost stopped, but James flattened his tongue and dragged particularly hard, hard enough to wrench a low, shattered groan from the woman under him.

“I can’t…”

James decided to have pity on Iras—that and his own mounting need throbbed between him and the bed. He released her thigh and used his now free hand to leverage himself so that his now three fingers in her could all hit that same spot over and over at a blistering pace. He found himself thankful that Iras preferred pressure to speed when it came to clitoral stimulation, and instead of having to be some insane flesh version of a vibrator, he just continued his firm and determined sucking and licking.

Her opening began to flutter, and the second he heard Iras stop making those small, high pitched noises and go silent he knew he had her. He sat on one elbow, a trail of her juices following his lips, as his fingers were clamped down on. He watched her ride her orgasm. The way her abs scrunched up, how her hips arched, even to the way her mouth parted in a quiet cry of completion made James almost orgasm himself. The afternoon sun poured through the window next to them and caused the fine layer of sweat over her body to accentuate her small shaking and shivering.

“You’re so beautiful,” James hissed under his breath. He leaned down and bit at her thigh, concluding that she needed another hickey next to the one he’d made just before torturing the biotic.

Iras rolled her head to the side, her eyes distant and her chest heaving. She made a small, breathy sound, as if to answer him, but he’d rendered her boneless. James popped off the violent love mark, nursing it with several loving licks, before sitting up.

He pulled her by her hips to where his needful erection sat along her slit, engulfed in her sticky heat without entering her. One of her hands lifted from the bed and grabbed onto his forearm.

“Wait… lemme… just lemme…”

To see all Iras’ muscled body rendered useless, encapsulated by pleasure, made James feel pride on the level of his new rank. He sat on his ankles and waited, though occasionally rocked himself up and down her to keep his mind from going completely blank. When she final let go of his arm and gripped the sheets under her, James used one hand to guide himself in. With a thankful sigh he sheathed himself within her, and shuddered at the heat and tightness that enraptured him.

She moaned, and tilted her head back, a silent queue that James took her up on. His mouth descended on her throat, his teeth scraping just enough, and his hands now keeping her in place as he snapped his hips forward hard enough to bunch the sheets under the small of her back. Her breathy repetition of his name established the rhythm for him, and James lost himself over to his own waves of sensation.

 

 

 


End file.
